The Loew’s State opened its doors on October 6, 1928 as a premier picture palace
of Rhode Island with a seating capacity is 3232. One of the main draws of the
theater was not the films it showed, but its opulent design, created by The Rapp
brothers. The Rapps (George and C.W.) were architects who
made their name by designing beautiful movie houses, complete with chandeliers
hanging from the ceilings, marble columns and detailed moldings on the walls.

On opening day, the feature film attraction was the "Metro Movietone sound
picture" Excess Baggage with William Haines. Also on the program were Movietone
and Vitaphone offerings, M.G.M. and Fox news, and Joseph Stoves at the "mighty
$100,000 Morton organ."The first person to purchase a ticket was a 14-year-old
Providence boy by the name of James Riley, who had waited hours for the honor.
Over 14,000 people jammed the building to marvel at the eye-popping opulence.
The fans were led to their seats by 50 uniformed ushers, past perches in the
lobby holding talking parrots.

The theatre
earned the distinction of being named to the National Register of Historic
Places for its "period of significance" being the Golden Age of the movies, from
1925 to 1949.

1950 - 1972 - Loew's Theatre

By the late 50’s and 60’s the theater saw more live concerts as a way to
keep the doors open and to keep up with the new trends of the youth market which is now known as “The Golden Age of Rock n Roll”.

1972 - 1975 - Palace
Concert Theatre

By 1971 The Loew’s
Theatre was purchased by B.A. Dario
for $250,000. and it continued to run under that name until February of 1972
when it became the Palace Concert Theatre as a venue for
rock concerts. Dario's great nephew Randy Hien worked at the Palace managing
concessions and other things before starting his own club called "The
Living Room" By this point the building was starting to show its age and the rock audience
did not help. The theater got run down with ceiling problems that leaked, too
much smoking and abuse with little or no maintenance. On November 1, 1975 Tower
of Power and Dr. John played the last show at the Palace.

1975 - 1978 -
Politics and Pasta

During this
period politics came into play with Mayor Buddy Cianci being the spearhead along
with B.A. Dario's wife Sylvia Bacchiocchito save this majestic palace
from being torn down and turned into a parking lot.
In reviewing Mayor Cianci's book"Politics
and Pasta",
David Kaiser wrote
"Yet a far more revealing story involves the preservation of Providence's last
remaining old movie palace, the downtown Loew's Theater, which subsequently
became the Providence Performing Arts Center. The owner, B. A. Dario, had asked
for a permit to demolish it. He found "a Waspy group" that wanted to buy and
refurbish it, and he went to work making the deal happen, eventually pledging $1
million of city funds, quite possibly without the slightest idea where they
would come from. Eventually he closed--or so he thought--the deal, only to get a
phone call from Dario demanding an additional $40,000 on the grounds that the
buyers had promised to pay him $1000 a day during negotiations. Buddy, who knows
how to bargain, solved the problem by appointing Dario "artistic consultant to
the city of Providence" for $25,000. "Now that," he writes, "is the kind of deal
that I should have gone to jail for." That is only one of at least a dozen
stories along those lines, most of them with happy endings.(Above passage borrowed from David Kaiser called An American Original
http://historyunfolding.blogspot.com/2011/05/american-original.html)

1978 - 1982 - Ocean
State Theatre

The theater opened its doors again now as the Ocean State
in October of 1978. It ran another four
years under that name and even though they wanted to change the image of the
venue and book musicals and upscale events, more rock concerts still came to visit the theater
because it still brought in more revenue during its transition.
The Ocean State did manage to make one investment of significant value by buying
an organ.

"Arthur P. Slater was the State Theater's chief projectionist for 40 years. One
of the major attractions of Loew's State was always the Mighty Morton Organ. On opening night, in 1928, the organ rose dramatically out of the
orchestra pit, and was played by Joseph Stover, imported all the way from Paris.

The original 1,500 pipe organ was sold in 1963 to one Patsy Fucci of Waltham,
Massachusetts. It had been in the theatre for a good 30-plus years. It was a
four-manual Robert-Morton organ that had cost about $125,000 when new in 1928. A
Providence Evening Bulletin article of March 16 that year reported manager
William Trambukis as saying that Mr. Fucci had carted the organ away over a
period of weeks, using big trailers. Some of the pipes were taller than a house.
The instrument had only been used occasionally after the advent of sound movies.
It had also been seriously damaged in the 1954 hurricane which flooded Loew's.
Mr. Fucci was a connoisseur of organs and a post office clerk and would set up
the organ in his basement. It would be powered by a motor in his garage.

In 1982 the
Ocean State as part of their restoration project decided it needed to purchase
another organ to replace the mighty Morton. Finally they found a beautiful Opus
1587. The Wurlitzer Company built only
three five-manual organs -- all of which are still playing today. The Opus 1587,
with just 21 ranks, opened in Chicago's 3,980-seat Marbro Theatre in 1927. In
the early '60s, it was reinstalled in Byron Carlson's Minneapolis, Minnesota
home. It remained there until 1982, when he sold it to the Ocean State Theatre
in Providence, Rhode Island, where it now is played frequently.

1982 - present
- Providence Performing Arts Center

The Providence Performing Arts Center has undergone massive renovations
throughout its history. With some of the early work done, the name was changed
to the current PPAC in 1982. Renovations throughout the 1990s and early 2000s
have allowed the theater to accommodate large Broadway productions as well as
orchestra performances. Technology has been brought up-to-date over the years
with the addition of air conditioning and heating systems, fire safety measures,
LED marquees and flat screen television monitors. Updated seating and electrical
wiring have been installed, while cosmetic renovations have recreated the
original 1920s-era styling of the Rapp brothers. It now features primarily
Broadway show series, as well as Philharmonic concerts and other events,
including Bright Night Providence, RI's artist-run New Year's Eve Celebration.
PPAC is a theatre of majestic quality and we must always remember the people who
fought for its survival at a time when demolition was just around the corner.

For more pictures of the beautiful renovation work
click here.We ask
your help to fill in the history of the theater with other concerts, tickets,
ads, photos or recording that may exist. Please send us an email to
info@rirock.net